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Definition

A cereal crop widely cultivated and used for a multitude of food products either directly (as with sweet corn) or indirectly as feed for other animals like chickens or cattle. Maize meal is the staple cereal in South Africa and thousands of subsistence farmers depend on it to survive. In a good season, South Africa can produce as much as 15 million tons of maize, consume 11 million locally and export over 3 million - mostly to the rest of Africa. In a bad season, the crop can be as low as 7 million tons which then requires us to import, to feed our population. Therefore how much rainfall we have can have an impact on the balance of payments as well as on whether subsistence farmers will need support or not. The war in Ukraine in 2022 resulted in a world-wide shortage of maize and that has caused prices to rise. This has a knock-on effect on the chicken industry which uses maize as feed.

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